The Gordon Research Conference on Periodontal Diseases will be held June 4-9, 2006, at Il Ciocco, Italy. The mission of the Gordon Research Conferences is "To promote growth, development, and open communication of frontier developments in science among investigators, young scientists in development, and other persons responsible for the growth of science." The specific aim of this application is to provide funding for travel and the fixed conference fee for participants. The conference program itself comprises oral presentations relating to periodontal disease in the topic areas of microbial genomics, virulence characteristics of oral microorganisms, complex community lifestyles, host-microbe recognition, antigen presentation and the specific immune response, controlling inflammation, mechanisms of wound healing and stem cells and tissue regeneration. Speakers and participants for this conference are admitted based upon Gordon Conference policies; the chair and co-chair are responsible for selecting speakers who are at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines, and conferees are selected based upon an application that details their activities and interests in the field. The Periodontal Diseases Gordon Research Conference in Italy June 2006 will bring together research workers from the US and across the world to hear about the latest discoveries in research and to share there most recent findings. The Conference is particularly valuable for junior research workers as it provides them with the opportunity to meet with the top scientists in the field. In addition at this meeting there are a large number of speakers from the medical research arena outside the dental area who will bring there own experiences of working on diseases related to periodontal disease. Funding is requested in order to support the travel costs and meeting expenses of speakers and to provide meeting grants for junior research workers at the beginning of their research careers. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]